The Costco Kirkland Product You Should Be Adding To Your Morning Coffee

When you stumble into the kitchen in the morning, still groggy from being woken up by the alarm, that first cup of heavenly-smelling coffee helps you start the day. You can get that caffeine boost in myriad ways — from a regular drip to a latte, a cappuccino, or a bracing shot of espresso. A increasingly popular option is blending butter into your morning brew, and using Costco's Kirkland Signature Grass-Fed Butter is a great way to get premium quality at an affordable price.

The Kirkland Signature butter is a close duplicate of Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter, which was the top finisher in our ranking of store-bought butter brands. Like Kerrygold, the Costco brand is made with milk from grass-fed cows and contains 82% butterfat, which meets the minimum premium threshold. The butter is produced in New Zealand by Westland Milk Products from milk supplied by hundreds of local farms. The cows graze on a 95% grass diet, supplemented with 5% grain for balanced nutrition.

Kirkland's butter, which is available only salted, has a more golden color and smoother texture than regular butter because of the beta-carotene and fatty acids from the cows' grass diet. Its higher butterfat also gives it a richer flavor and creamier consistency. While its quality is comparable to Kerrygold, it costs significantly less. A four-bar, 2-pound pack of Kirkland Signature Grass-Fed Butter was $13.59 at a Houston Costco, compared to $18.49 for the same size of the Irish butter.

Putting butter in coffee or tea is a traditional practice in countries including Ethiopia, Tibet, Vietnam, Singapore, and India. Businessman Dave Asprey, the originator of the Bulletproof Diet, helped popularize the idea in the U.S. with his brand, Bulletproof Coffee, after having tea with yak butter while traveling in Tibet.

Asprey's recipe combines grass-fed, unsalted butter with coffee and MCT oil. The butter and oil are said to increase energy, keep you full longer, and slow caffeine absorption to prevent a quick boost followed by a crash. Some people swap MCT oil for coconut oil or use clarified butter instead of regular butter.

When blended in a blender, frothed, or whisked by hand, butter coffee becomes rich, smooth, and creamy, with a little foam on top and a flavor similar to coffee with cream. The butter helps balance coffee's bitterness, but if it's not mixed well, the result can be greasy. Other fats also work: Adding mayo to coffee is a more recent trend, as is making it with olive or lemon oil.

While most butter coffee recipes call for unsalted butter, the Kirkland Signature Grass-Fed variety is still a solid choice because it contains less sodium. At 75 milligrams per serving, it's significantly lower than Kerrygold's 100 milligrams, making it less likely to overpower your morning brew. The mild saltiness can even be desirable, especially if you add a flavor like caramel syrup for a salted caramel coffee or cocoa for a salted chocolate note.